Carlotta of Isle-on-Sea
by memacat.malpas
Summary: Snatched from an island no one has left for thousand of years, and taken to the School for Good and Evil, Carlotta is taught to become a princess. Problem is, Carlotta is not a princess. She lies. She steals. Most of her classmates hate her. But then she uncovers something hidden in the school. Something that could threaten the lives of everyone.


Carlotta of Isle-on-Sea

There is a place in this world far far away, even farther than the mist of the Murmuring Mountains, the glass towers of the Sky Palace, or even the quite bookish-ness of the infamous non-village of Gavaldon.

You would be quite correct in thinking it goes unknown by many. For most, the shores of End Beach are as far as civilization gets. The ocean beyond stretches forever, untouched and vicious.

But you see, there is a but. For many miles out to sea, there is an island, small and desolate, but home to a few. This is the Isle-on-Sea. It is stuff of legends. For the few on mainland who know of it, it is a place shrouded in myths of beasts larger than the tallest mountains, monsters that swim deeper than the deepest trench, and, as one legend goes, rock creatures that come alive on stormy nights and wreck ships to their watery grave.

In fact, the Isle-on-Sea was simply a small, fertile stretch of grassland, home to quiet, peaceful folk who told tales of the fabled mainland, where fairytales happen.

To this date, not a soul from the island had visited the mainland for hundreds, even thousands of years. A few had left, in hand carved canoes and rafts, but nobody made it to End Beach. Many mainlanders set out to find the mysterious island, but whole ships had disappeared half way through the ocean, leaving not a trace.

There was an explanation for this, passed down as a story. Some put the disappearances down to a monster, others to freak weather. But they all agree on one thing, and that whatever happened, it happened in a particular stretch of sea know as the Untouchable Square. Only two people ever survived passage through.

Carlotta of Isle-on-Sea. That wasn't her original name. To everyone, she was Carlotta, or Lotta, or even Lottie (but you only called her that if you wanted her to hit you). She was a wild girl, with thick brown curls, a dusting of freckles and eyes like blue moons. She lived with her mother and little brother Brett on a cottage dangerously close to a cliffs edge, and went to the only school on the island, which consisted of 18 children in total.

Carlotta was not the perfect child. Fiercely unpredictable, she could turn on you the instant you said something that annoyed her, and she stole. Not big things, just if she wanted pay back, or saw something that took her fancy. A pretty shell, a red pencil, a clay bead bracelet, it didn't matter what. She kept all these treasures in a biscuit tin underneath her bed, and was never caught. She was just too clever.

It was a summers morning, and everything was spitefully hot. Carlotta and five other children, ranged from five all the way to sixteen, were paddling in the sea.

"Lotta! What have you done?" That was Juniper, the eldest, a lanky, pink cheeked boy. Carlotta had been trying to persuade the youngest, Ailsa, to swim, and had gotten impatient and pushed her into the water. It was only about six inches deep, topping eight when the waves came, but Ailsa was wailing as if she had been stabbed.

"Shut up, crybaby," Carlotta scowled, crossing her arms and turning to stare at Juniper defiantly. Being thirteen put her in the spot of second oldest, a title she looked forward to changing when Juniper officially became a grown-up.

May, seven years old and Ailsa's sister, ran through the water, and jumped up right next to Carlotta, splashing everyone with a shower of water.

"Lotta's right, you _are _a crybaby," she jeered, while tugging on Ailsa's hand to pull her up, "look what I can do!" She ran back into the sea and bellyflopped right into a big wave, showering a nearby Brett. Carlotta laughed and ran to join her. The rest of the day passed in much the same fashion. Ailsa crying, May showing off, Brett getting in people's way, Carlotta bossing them all, and Juniper bossing Carlotta.

All considered, they were rather happy children.

But this was a normal, summer's day. Nothing extraordinary happened, at least, not until that evening.

Carlotta's mother was tending the much wilted garden when Carlotta and Brett returned home after a long day at the beach. The sweet smell of apple pie wafted through the open window shutters and settled on the yellowing grass. The table was set for dinner, and the back door was flung open, bathing the kitchen in a warm, evening glow.

After tea, Carlotta wandered up to her room and stretched lazily out on her bedroom floor. The sun was low in the sky, but was still sending out warm, pink streaks, magnified by the room's arched window. Suddenly, she sat up. Over by the mirror, were those..._eyes? _

She blinked, and all she could she was her reflection. Shaking her head, she got up and stretched, turning at an angle so she could see her shadow painted on the wall.

_It wasn't her shadow._

Carlotta's shadow was the outline of a thin, squat girl, with a large fuzz of hair down her back. This shadow was tall, so tall its head brushed the ceiling, and stocky, with the build of a man in a stiff, uncomfortable uniform. But most unnerving of all were two holes in the shadow's head, in the shaped of small, wicked eyes.

She didn't have time to scream before a cloaked hand grabbed her mouth and pulled her down. The floor shafts gave way and Carlotta and the shadow fell down into the kitchen below. She barely had time to register the shock on her mum's face before the shadow pulled her out of the window, and dragged her through the garden like a limp rag doll. Carlotta worked her mouth out of her captor's grasp and screamed as they plunged into the sea bed, cutting her voice out with a torrent of bubbles. The salt worked its way into her eyes and seawater clogged her throat. Carlotta's lungs began to burn, and just as she felt she couldn't last any longer, the shadow jerked them out of the water with a gasp of air, and continued to skim the waves, ignoring the girl's yelps of pain as they crashed into rocks with no regard for safety.

She twisted her neck around to look behind her, but the island was long gone on the horizon. Waves crashed and twisted with the steamed up air, splattering her in the face and pounding relentlessly at her clothes. Carlotta looked ahead and shrieked again.

In the middle of the distant waves sat a swirling, gaping hole in the middle of the sea.

Undeterred, the shadow didn't stop. They neared the circling currents, and rose above the chasm. Carlotta's neck flipped down, and her head swam dizzily at the swirling mass of nothing below.

Well, almost nothing.

It started with a tentacle. Then another, then another, then another. Soon the chasm was filled with a churning density of suckers. One made a grab for Carlotta's leg, and tugged her out of the shadow's grasp. She brought a fist down on the tentacle and it released her, hurtling her down into the sea, narrowly missing the gaping hole.

Carlotta tried to swim against the currents, but she could feel herself being pulled back towards the sea monster. Another tentacle wrapped itself round her waist, and began to reel her in. She held her breath and shut her eyes when-

WHAM. The monster shrieked and flailed its arms as the shadow pummelled it with spell after spell. Carlotta rubbed the salt out of her stinging eyes and realized she was once more in the grip of the shadow and being pulled high into the sky. They were flying out at a heart-stopping speed, away from the monster and the chasm and onwards towards the horizon.

They flew for a very long time. The sun swept gracefully away, to be replaced by the iridescent stars and the darkened inky night sky. It would have been beautiful, had Carlotta not been mortally terrified. Up ahead, a looming black shape appeared in the distance.

_Mainland _she thought.

The shadow seemed to pick up speed. Soon they were swooping over the moon lit countryside, revealing lands Carlotta never knew. She could see twinkling cities, winding silver rivers, and the tips of the tallest trees as they brushed against her bare feet. A gust of wind swept a scattering of leaves up, dancing and laughing alongside the flying shadow, before lapsing back down to earth. The shadow's movements were so steady; Carlotta could feel her eyelids drooping against the consistence flutter of the breeze. She slowly floated off into sleep.

A loud CAW jolted her awake. The early morning sun was stretched across the sky, and up ahead she could see two towering castles. One was bathed in sunlight, with shinning blue and pink glass turrets and clear skies above. The other was black and twisted, its spiked towers cutting into the stormy rainclouds that hovered above it. Behind both castles lay dark, foreboding woods that continued as far as the eye could see. A winding moat, dark on one side and crystal blue on the other, settled around the castles, underneath a bridge that connected the two, and settled around a very tall tower in the middle. Huge iron gates enclosed at this, and on the front it read:

The School for Good and Evil

Carlotta took one swift glance, before the shadow made a sharp dive and they were plunging down, at breakneck speed, towards the pink and blue castle. Suddenly, a huge winged gargoyle swooped down and scratched its claw across Carlotta's shocked face.

_So that's what the caw was _she had time to think, before the gargoyle grabbed a chunk of her hair in its claw and tore her away from the shadow. One more blow to the face, and Carlotta tumbled out off its grasp and fell towards the earth, as the world rushed out of control and screams were snatched from her mouth.

A very hard thwack. Not much else for a while.


End file.
